Chapter two, Captured

Narrator: Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Unknown date, 2nd year of the 3rd Era of the Hyperiums Protectorate.

Mus: Seabs, we're being overrun we gotta pull back, Jenkins, get to the entrenched position, Seabs, cover us!

Jenkins and Mus pulled back, leaving me all alone to cover them against a whole freakin regiment. The Azzies put a round in both my knees, it was so painful, though, not as painful as what was to come. MG's. I was on the ground, and there was no way I could have gotten to the guys. I looked behind me and the Azzies were at the top of the hill, which meant they got past the mines. The guys were calling my name, I turned just as Mus caught a bullet, I couldn't see where. A mortar exploded in the foxhole where they were, or darn near anyways, poor young guys but compared to what I was going to suffer, I envied them. There was no shooting now. I passed out.

I woke up, no, they woke me up in a bare cell. But bare is probably a bad adjective for the cell, there was blood, green, red and blue, there was grey matter, I hoped to God it wasn't what I thought it was, but judging by what they did to the other prisoners who arrived later, I realized it was.

The azzies started trying to speak to me. Freakin aliens probably didn't realize that I didn't speak squid.

Seabs: What the hell do you squids want!?

I spat in their ugly faces, probably not the best idea. They threw me up against the wall, the shorter of the two grabbed my left hand, I kicked the prick in the balls, well where human balls were anyways. No reaction, except for that one snapping my middle finger right back until it touched my wrist. It was unbelievably painful; I began screaming my lungs out. I could see smiles on their ugly faces; the other one kneed me in the balls and dropped me. They grabbed my hair and lifted my head up, and they punched me in the face, breaking my nose.

Seabs: I swear to God! I will kill you, and your entire evil race!

I tried to stand up, but I couldn't, both my knees had bullets in them. They grabbed my arms and spread them out, one of them pulled my sidearm from God knows where, a C22 heavy pistol. The thing fired a .50 cal round, I knew where this was going. The put it up to my elbow and pulled the trigger. The gunshot reverberated through the cell, my arm below the elbow was no longer attached to the rest of my arm, I didn't get a chance to scream very long, I passed out almost immediately.

I woke up later, I don't know how much later, but there were others here now. They had stopped the bleeding in what was left of my arm, but it hurt so bad, not to mention my broken middle finger. My arm was lying on the ground a couple feet away, some annoying rats were chewing on it, I crawled over and pushed them away. I slumped to the ground, I had lost more blood than I thought. One of the other guys with me got up and helped me to sit against a wall. He had a hard face, scarred across his forehead, and he looked young, too young, probably didn't even shave yet. The war really wasn't going in our favour if we had soldiers this young.

Seabs: Thanks…I'm Private Sebastian Seabs, 22nd Airbourne. You?

Private: Private Horton a medic, 5th Light Infantry. That arm looks bad, lemme take a look at it.

Seabs: Thanks, I owe you a bun-

I didn't even finish my sentence when some Azzies barged in. They looked around, saw Horton checking me and walked over. I tried to stand up to get in between them and Horton but they pushed me away and I was to dizzy to fight back, I just fell to the floor again, it's not like I would have been able to stand up anyways, my knees were shot, literally. Three more walked in to make sure none of the other prisoners resisted. The other two picked up Horton, who didn't fight back; it would just make it worse. They held him against the wall and put braces around his neck and extremities, which locked against the wall. They hooked a device, which encompassed his head, to the wall, it was essentially a black box with buttons, I thought it would suffocate him, I was wrong. They pushed some buttons, the center sections moved in, while the edges stayed where they were, it was slowly crushing his head. We could hear muffled screams, some cracks and crunches; he was squirming now, trying to remove the box, the Azterks just laughed, blood started running down the wall behind him. It was slow, and looked agonizingly painful, he was still screaming, but it was muffled, which made it even scarier, foretelling of things to come. There was a final big crunch, followed by many more little crunches as his skull fragments were crushed even more, and then it finally stopped, his body was limp. They took off the machine and his body, minus head, slid to the floor. Now I knew for sure what the grey stuff spread throughout the room was.

I thought they were finished. I was wrong. They took something that resembled a spike, but had thorn-like things protruding from the sides, walked over to another prisoner and picked him up. They held him upside down against the wall, and ran it through his knee into the wall. He began screaming in agony, at this point they were still supporting him, but they let him go and he slid down the wall another two inches, which meant as he fell, the spike went up, causing him immense pain, luckily for him he passed out. They chained us to the wall and left, evidently they didn't want us helping the man they hung upside down.